


She too has a love story

by ChocoNut



Series: Modern JB love [81]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Pining, very mild smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29921091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoNut/pseuds/ChocoNut
Summary: When Brienne begins to write a story of a lady-warrior and her unrequited love for a handsome king, her friend Jaime offers to be her sounding-board. Complications arise when her tale begins to take a different direction.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Modern JB love [81]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557871
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98





	She too has a love story

“What sort of a pen name is _Oathkeeper_?”

Jaime gives her one of those charming smiles women in the office would _accidentally-on-purpose_ run into him in the cafeteria for. “Just sounds good, that’s all.”

“Anyway—” She hopes he’s read the outline she’d emailed him after he’d accepted her request for a beta-reader on the writers’ page on their office network. “What do you think?” 

“Your heroine is a six-foot-three sword wielding warrior.”

“So?” she snaps at his questioning eyes. “You think it should be a pretty princess? A damsel in distress?”

“Oh no, I never said that,” he says mildly. “We’ve had many pretty princesses, so you’re good here. But her love story is the problem here…”

Again she puts on her defensive helmet. “What about it?”

“Have you called me here to bite my head off, wench?” He now looks like he’d rather be spending these after-work hours elsewhere than look over her plot. “If you’re not interested—”

“Sorry.” Spending an hour every Friday evening discussing romance with a friend who is dangerously close to breaching that line in her mind is more than just scary. “I was just stressed out about something.”

“Want to go out for a drink?” he soothingly suggests. “We can talk over a beer if you feel like—”

“We’re good here.” Getting drunk and spilling out the truth about her feelings isn’t a risk she wants to take. “So… what’s wrong about the romance?”

“Warrior woman falls for a handsome king.” He begins tapping his pen absently on the table. “Said king marries a pretty girl, so heartbroken, the heroine decides to dedicate her life to serving him.” He makes a face. “Meh, if you ask me.”

“What do you propose?”

“You need some spice, some drama,” he says theatrically. “And all of it eventually leading to a happy ending. This useless king she’s pining for doesn’t deserve her anyway.”

“She’s been through three broken engagements. She’s ugly, shunned by society.” Her thoughts fly to Renly. “Not all love stories have a happy ending, Jaime.” 

Jaime has on that winning smile again. “Yours just might.”

+++++

He looks mighty pleased when she arrives. “You didn’t ignore my advice.”

“I just—” Brienne doesn’t want to admit his idea had her spending sleepless nights relating it to her personal life. “I’ve just put it down for now. It’s not final.”

“It will be.”

“This knight she’s forced to play jailer to—” he scrolls down the document he’s reading on his phone “—give him shades of gray, a dark past and a forbidden relationship he needs to break free of.” His eyes are somewhere far away. “Enemies first, and from there, let them build a grudging friendship and then—”

“—lovers.” This is such a fairy-tale! “Now that’ll be ridiculous because it never happens in real life.” 

She and Jaime are the best examples of things not working the bookish way. When they started, they couldn’t see eye to eye on projects. Gradually they became friends, and for ages, that’s what they’ve been. While enemies to friends is quite possible, friends to lovers is— 

“It might happen, Brienne,” he says, bursting with optimism. “Just wait and see.”

+++++

“So you did give this knight a beautiful sister-lover.” His eyes are brighter than usual. “Sensational. Forbidden, because incest. I love all the drama it'll lead to.”

“Yeah, but I might wipe it all out if I don’t like how it unfolds.” She would, if it seeps too much into real life. Twice she’s been drawn to someone she can’t have. With the first one giving her a tough time emotionally, this time she’d have to be careful to stay well within the line.

“But you _do_ like it.” 

“Not just yet—”

“You wouldn’t have introduced this character if you didn’t have a soft corner for him,” Jaime goes on, dragging her into dangerous waters. “You—” 

“I like him. It’s just that I—” Somehow this knight character has ended up a fictitious projection of her friend. “Between his attractive lover and my heroine, who would he choose?” she asks, diverting him.

“I think you know my answer.” Leaning closer, he looks into her eyes, and Brienne can feel her pulse rocket. “Have him think about her when she’s not around, and she, about him.” His voice is soft now, like a soothing audio book narrator’s, and she can feel herself slipping into—

 _No. Not him._

Not after what happened with Renly. The saying _‘once bitten twice shy,’_ was coined for a reason. For people like her. Handsome king or handsome knight, it doesn’t matter. They’d both drift to people who matched their good looks and grace.

“Have them pine for each other,” he continues dreamily. “After a couple of heart-felt goodbyes, have them both spend considerable time apart, so your hero realizes his heart is no more with his lover—”

“Hers too?” she asks, lured into his inviting eyes. 

“Hers too.”

+++++

“He gives up his lover to ride to the other end of the country to be with the warrior he adores!” Jaime’s broad smile tells her he totally approves. 

But those friendly green eyes, instead of encouraging her to go with the flow of this tale of great love, fill her with apprehension. Friendly means _friendly_ , not more. And this prickly feeling trickles down to her perception of her heroine and the knight she has fallen in love with. The poor woman would end up with nothing but pain. Like the king who danced with her and stole her heart, only to shatter it by marrying another woman and lusting after a man, getting too emotionally close to this troubled knight would mean getting sucked into the same loop of falling in love and getting her heart broken.

“This will bomb badly,” she concludes, deciding on the fly to re-work the plot. “People will never believe that a handsome knight falls for an ugly woman—”

“In his eyes, she could be pretty.” His elbows resting casually on the table, he tilts his face to hers and whispers, “If I were him, I’d certainly be drawn to her—”

“It doesn't work like that.”

Alarmed that this is getting beyond just a literary disagreement, she mumbles some excuse about Sansa waiting for her and abandons the discussion.

+++++ 

“Are we meeting tomorrow, Brienne?”

She thinks for a moment. “I have plans to go shopping with Sansa after work.”

+++++

 **“It’s been more than two weeks since we’ve caught up,”** his text reads.

 **“I’ve been busy,”** she types out.

His reply follows within seconds. **“This Friday?”**

**“Will let you know later if I can make it.”**

+++++

On Friday, Jaime ambushes her just after lunch. “Don’t you think we should talk about the kiss?”

A collective gasp floats across the table. “You two kissed?” Margaery’s eyes are round, full of something that never happened nor will ever happen. “When were you going to—”

“It’s about the characters in her story,” Jaime explains, straightening their understanding. 

A collective _‘oh’_ of disappointment floods the table, and her companions return to winding up. 

What were they thinking? That she and Jaime— 

Something pricks the corner of her eye, and muttering a hurried, “Excuse me,” Brienne takes leave of the group.

+++++

“I’ll drop you home.”

“I’m fine.” She packs her stuff at double the speed. “I can take a cab—”

“Unless you have a good reason to turn me down, you’re coming with me, wench.”

Brienne wants to resist, but what good would it be? If not today, tomorrow she’d have to face him. Such is her fate. He’s there for her, but not _for_ her. One often feels pain when parted from the one they pine for, but with her, it’s the opposite. His company, these days, leaves her restless, more than the hours she spends away from him. Perhaps, it is the fear that grips her deep down that she’d end up losing whatever she has with him if he ever happens to find out—

“Their kiss should be oozing passion.” His eyes shift from the road to hers in the mirror. “A chaste peck on the lips won’t work for two people who’ve been burning for each other for years.”

Her mind soars away, imagining it, but she quickly shoots it down. “I don’t think he will want to—”

“Oh, he will.” The only sound in the car is their breathing. “When he kisses her it’ll be like the first drop of dew on a soft petal—”

“That sounds like chaste to me,” she whispers, drawn into the softness of his voice.

“It won’t be when he realizes he can’t stop,” he whispers back. “The earth will cease to spin when they breathe each other—”

“—and mountains would move.” Though just in her head, it is truly magical.

“With that first lip lock, promises would be made.” His eyes are on the traffic, hands tightly gripping the wheel. “ _‘I am yours,’_ the knight would softly mouth against her lips. _‘I will always be yours’_.” 

“And when she kisses him back, she’d give herself to him—”

“—making him feel like the king of the world,” Jaime quietly finishes.

Silence fills the car, draining her mind of everything but him and this exchange. She feels like she’s in a different world, that she is her story. And it feels like the story is writing itself, talking to her through him.

But when a car zooms past them, dragging her back to where she belongs, she knows it is foolish to believe that stories can make it to real life. “I think I should leave the kiss low-key.”

“Don’t you think she deserves more than that?” Jaime continues to pursue. “And a beautiful lovemaking scene after that—” 

“Such things never happen in real life—”

“But—”

“I don’t want a piece of fiction to cloud my—” Brienne bursts out. “Stop the car, please.”

He pulls over. 

“I think I can walk from here.” Her final decision taken, she gets out. “This novel is a bad idea. So I’m going to chuck it.”

+++++

“We need to talk,” Jaime says, barging in as soon as she opens the door. “You’ve been avoiding me, putting away our meetings.”

“I told you I’m not going to continue writing—”

“I’m not leaving until I get to know how this ends.” His body language tells her he won’t budge without a satisfactory answer.

“Like the real world, she doesn’t get the guy.” Fuck the damn story! She’d been naive, for a while, to think such a romance made sense. “Guys like this knight of yours are good only on paper—”

His kiss cuts her short.

Never before has someone ended an argument with her like this, and it is undoubtedly the best way to make peace. 

It feels exactly like he’d described. His touch lays it bare. His breath hides nothing. Who needs words when he can make promises like this? 

Mountains do move, Brienne realizes, when she gives in to this breathtaking twist in her life. And the earth can stop from time to time.

+++++

This is no scene out of her book.

Every second of this night belongs to him and her. The legs tangled in his are hers, the fiery softness wrapped around him: that is her. The rosy impressions of his teeth on her skin, the slickness of his tongue on her nipple—this is _their_ story. Every thrust that binds them together, every sigh and every moan of their names, every throaty cry to touch the air—this is a moment she’s living and breathing. 

Passion, she has often read, is quick and sharp and heated, but with him, it unfolds as a bed of slow-burning coals. He snatches her breaths, elopes with her kisses. He is a drowning man, clutching at her for life. He is a man on fire, consuming her as he perishes. Every drop of sweat that erupts, he sucks away like a man parched. With every touch he tells her he’s here; here for her. 

How hard she’d been trying to make it go away! Such valiant efforts she’d put up to keep his thoughts at bay, hoping her desire would fade, taking with it the pain. When yet another kiss makes it to her lips, she’s glad of being mistaken, thankful to be shown that she’s no longer the wounded one.

When pleasure coils tightly around them, then unfurls to gently envelop them, it is the torrid climax she’d steered away from dreaming of for even her character. It might soon make it to her pages, but before that it belongs to her.

When he holds her, there is no more wanting what she can never have. Nothing in the world can take this away from her. 

She too has a love story now. Jaime is her happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
